Teenage victims of sex traffickers will get money from sale of brothels

The closed La Costeñita nightclub sits in the 8000 block of Clinton Drive. It is among properties of two convicted sex traffickers. The 10 dwellings, restaurants, lots and cantinas will be sold to benefit victims. less

The closed La Costeñita nightclub sits in the 8000 block of Clinton Drive. It is among properties of two convicted sex traffickers. The 10 dwellings, restaurants, lots and cantinas will be sold to benefit ... more

Photo: Brett Coomer

Photo: Brett Coomer

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The closed La Costeñita nightclub sits in the 8000 block of Clinton Drive. It is among properties of two convicted sex traffickers. The 10 dwellings, restaurants, lots and cantinas will be sold to benefit victims. less

The closed La Costeñita nightclub sits in the 8000 block of Clinton Drive. It is among properties of two convicted sex traffickers. The 10 dwellings, restaurants, lots and cantinas will be sold to benefit ... more

Photo: Brett Coomer

Teenage victims of sex traffickers will get money from sale of brothels

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For seven years, the bars and shacks on the gritty east edge of Houston served as unsightly venues of serial sex crimes where a convicted human trafficker ruled with threats, and Mexican teens as young as 14 were battered, forced to live in sheds, and toil as cantina call girls after being smuggled to Houston.

But U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes ruled Tuesday that five of the youngest victims in one of the city's most visible human trafficking rings will benefit from the sale of ringleader Maria "Nancy" Rojas and her husband's bars and the rest of their ramshackle real estate empire, according to instructions delivered to prosecutors.

It is the first time prosecutors have successfully pushed for forfeiture of assets for the benefit of sex trafficking victims in Houston - and among only a few cases nationally, said Edward Gallagher, a senior federal prosecutor who heads Houston's Human Trafficking Rescue Alliance (HTRA).

Valued at $602,000

The convicted Houston couple's collection of 10 dwellings, restaurants, weedy vacant lots and cantinas, known as La Cueva and La Costeñita, carry an assessed value of about $602,000, and all proceeds will be divided equally among former teenage victims to pay for medical, psychological and educational expenses to "try to restore them to well-adjusted productivity," Hughes told prosecutors at a federal court hearing.

Hughes excluded nine other women in their 20s and 30s from benefitting in his decision, though federal officials had argued they too had been beaten, threatened and used by the same criminal group. Hughes said he was unable to determine how much each woman had collected in cash as a prostitute - willing or not.

"Some of them may have had horrendous experiences, incredible pain and economic deprivation - others may have profited substantially - I have no way of determining that," declared Hughes, who said he was troubled by evidence that some government "victims" married or had children by traffickers.

David Adler, a government-appointed defense attorney for Rojas, supported restitution for the five teenage victims. But he said he believed prosecutors stretched the definition of "trafficking victim" in this case to include women who freely took taxis to cantina prostitution jobs as well as individuals who got deported from the United States and later illegally returned to their alleged captors.

Making them feel safe

If nothing else, victim advocate Dottie Laster said the ruling means - at long last - some of Houston's boldest cantina-brothels will finally be closed and sold to help victims.

"That's part of the justice victims need to see that we care about them and the law cares about them," she said. "It's important. Houston needs to do everything they can to make Houston unattractive and unprofitable for traffickers and the people that are helping them and make this place absolutely safe for victims."

About eight years ago, Laster, who got her start as an employee of the Houston YMCA, helped a different teen, who fled from associates of the same trafficking group and risked her life to help investigators.

That girl received no compensation for providing tips that resulted in the first round of busts among the Clinton Drive's sleazy collection of cantina owners and pimps.

Other criminals later associated with Rojas' cantina-based trafficking operation were indicted in 2005 in what would be the first of many attempts to shut down a seemingly ever-regenerating operation based in brightly-painted cantinas equipped with hidden cameras, tight security, secret doors, seedy bedchambers and hidden living quarters.

Prosecutors and federal agents first targeted long-time Mexico-based supplier Gerardo "El Gallo" Salazar, a so-called Romeo pimp who romanced young girls with false promises in small Mexican towns and later tattooed his victims with the mark of the Rooster.

Fates of three

Salazar remains jailed pending his extradition from Mexico, where he was arrested in 2010 after five years on the lam.

This month Rojas, an illegal immigrant and convicted prostitute, was sentenced to 16 years in prison.

Her partner and property co-owner, Javier Belamonte, will be sentenced in June.

"The goal was not only to prosecute these people, but to dismantle this organization and take away all of their ill-gotten gains," said Ruben Perez, one of the lead prosecutors in the case.